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so long drapes!

{i had the hardest time choosing a title for this post. i gave up thinking and ended up with a double entendre. see if you can figure it out…ooooohhh.}

from the day we moved in to our apartment, one of my biggest pet peeves was the drapes in the living room and dining room. they were the steve urkel of drapes.

living room:

dining room:

where’s the flood? not in my living room or dining room. i’m not sure who made the decision to purchase these highwater drapes, but they were not working for me. and the beige color was not doing them any favors, especially since i am not a beige girl.

my original plan was to sew drapes myself, but since we’re renting and will be in a place of our own in less than two years, i was not in the mood to spend all the time and money for drapes that most likely will not fit future windows. so off i went the other weekend to ikea, the king of affordable drapes (seen & featured in the homes of many bloggers), to finally say so long to the bane of my living and dining rooms.

i picked up two pairs of the bleached (white) lenda drapes, one pair for each room.

down came the old, dusty, short and beige drapes and up went the new, clean, long and white drapes.

the drapes are tab topped, but in the living room i hung the them with curtain rings i picked up at ikea by folding the tabs to the back (in black, to match the existing rod).

(seriously, i’m so over my crappy, grainy pics due to having to use a high iso! pet peeve #1: hardly any natural light. have i said that already?)

while at ikea i had a blonde moment (sorry blondes) and only picked up one pack of curtain rings…for two packs of drapes. duh. so the dining room drapes were hung by the tabs. i prefer the rings but not enough to go buy some, so they’re staying mismatched, mmkay?

however, i do now have the opposite problem–my drapes are too (so) long.

i was too eager to get these up in time for book club that i didn’t have time to hem them…and two weeks later i still haven’t made the time to do so. but i’ll take too-long drapes to too-short drapes any day.

to recap (less scrolling)…

living room before & after:

dining room before & after:

ahhh. white can be so refreshing.

here’s the breakdown:

drapes: $40 ($20 per pair)
curtain rings: $3

$43 for new drapes that don’t make me shudder when i look at them. i don’t think i could have sewed drapes for myself any cheaper. that’s a win win.

do you own any of the ‘infamous’ ikea drapes? do you say drapes or curtains? apparently today i was in the drapes mood but use both phrases. did you catch the ‘so long drapes’ double meaning? i said ‘so long’ to my fugly drapes…but now have ‘so long’ new drapes…wah wah wah.

hello! i wouldn’t say they are see-through, but they are not opaque. they have a good weight to them, they’re not paper thin. they aren’t “darkening” shades but instead diffuse the light. i would think that if it was nighttime, the lights were on and the drapes were shut you would be able to see through them, but not clearly. (we’re not using these because we walk around naked at night, if you know what i mean. because we don’t 🙂 )